About

In just a few words, the Creative Space is a coworking office in Downtown Bryan. Coworking is cafe-like community/collaboration space for developres, designers, writers and independents. Or, it’s like this: start with a shared office and add cafe culture, which is the opposite of most modern cafes.

If you are a telecommuter, freelancer, or entrepreneur this might be the place for you.

Back Story

The Creative Space was founded on August 22, 2007 by five members of the RefreshBCS community. They had heard of the coworking movement and without hesitation trudged into what would soon spread across Texas over the next few years. After several beers, pounds of coffee and late, late brainstorming sessions the plan was set.

Creative Space (Aug 2007 - Jul 2008)

The founding group came up with a short list of must-haves, like-to-haves and must-not-have. After several weeks of meeting with property owners, afternoon drives, and Twitter spamming we ran across the great folks at Fibertown. Randall Spradley met with us, listened to what we had envisioned and bought into the idea. Along our searching, we ran into very few folks who ‘got it’ – thanks Randall.

Downtown Bryan was a perfect fit. It was one of the only places in the Bryan/College Station area that had a somewhat progressive and pedestrian feel to it. There was the historical charm, massive fiber pipes and plenty of things to do after-hours. There was a moment when we all looked at each other and realized “yep, this is it.”

Once the lease was signed, the paint was splashed and desks were assembled we had our grand opening soon after. Very soon. The same day. We all joke around still, about how the paint wasn’t completely dry when we invited the RefreshBCS community up to see the digs.

Growth

Not a month later, we had our first additional resident. We began growing at a pretty steady pace until we had filled our four rooms on the fifth floor of the nearly 70 year old art-deco building. Many great times were had with parties, a BarCamp and late night discussions about angel funding vs boot-strapping.

Kitchen (Jul 2008 - Aug 2010)

Along the way, a few of the residents graduated on to other ventures or graduated and decided to move out West to strike it rich. We’re always shuffling desks around to change the vibe around and residents are constantly contributing randomobjects.

Once feeling the pressures of needing more space and suddenly realizing that expanding wasn’t going to be as easy as we wished, we made the move above Square One Bistro only two blocks away. The new space had beautiful hardwood floors, eighty year old hardware, lots of exposed brick, a full bathroom and large kitchen. The feel was much more in-tune with what the group had evolved to. It was hard saying good bye to our first office, but it was pretty exciting to move into the new space.

Current

Month to month, we’re at about 80% capacity with a slow attrition that seems to keep up with new members. We have slowly evolved the pricing structure and the way plans are formed. We now have a room dedicated to drop-in residents and a dedicated conference room (equipped with a necessary great pinball machine).